Joy and the Dragon (1916)
62 mins | Drama | 31 December 1916
Filming was done in and around the Balboa studios in Long Beach, CA.
In the 30 December 1916 Moving Picture World, reviewer Edward Weitzel praised the nearly five-year-old actress, known variously as Helen Marie Osborne, Little Marie Osborne, and "Little Mary Sunshine," for her natural personality: "There is no attempt at gestures or the painfully acquired techniques of the so-called 'child actress' in the efforts of little Miss Osborne. She lives every scene in which she takes part and never shows that she is aware of the existence of such a thing as a camera." Peter Milne, writing in that week's Motion Picture News, agreed: "Marie is a child distinctly apart from the theatre and the studio. She is not an actress....Baby Osborne is a natural child who has at her command a series of wonderful expressions. She uses them to excellent effect."
Joy and the Dragon was the fourth feature film appearance of the young actress (1911-2010), who became one of the most popular child stars of the 1910s, before she retired from the screen in 1919. (See Little Mary Sunshine for more information.) In the 1930s, Osborne returned to the film world in minor roles and was a stand-in for Ginger Rogers before becoming a studio costumer and wardrobe supervisor. One of her last credited films was The Godfather Part II (see entry).
According to the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database, this film is extant. A print survives in a Valencia, Italy, archive. ...
Filming was done in and around the Balboa studios in Long Beach, CA.
In the 30 December 1916 Moving Picture World, reviewer Edward Weitzel praised the nearly five-year-old actress, known variously as Helen Marie Osborne, Little Marie Osborne, and "Little Mary Sunshine," for her natural personality: "There is no attempt at gestures or the painfully acquired techniques of the so-called 'child actress' in the efforts of little Miss Osborne. She lives every scene in which she takes part and never shows that she is aware of the existence of such a thing as a camera." Peter Milne, writing in that week's Motion Picture News, agreed: "Marie is a child distinctly apart from the theatre and the studio. She is not an actress....Baby Osborne is a natural child who has at her command a series of wonderful expressions. She uses them to excellent effect."
Joy and the Dragon was the fourth feature film appearance of the young actress (1911-2010), who became one of the most popular child stars of the 1910s, before she retired from the screen in 1919. (See Little Mary Sunshine for more information.) In the 1930s, Osborne returned to the film world in minor roles and was a stand-in for Ginger Rogers before becoming a studio costumer and wardrobe supervisor. One of her last credited films was The Godfather Part II (see entry).
According to the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database, this film is extant. A print survives in a Valencia, Italy, archive.
Young Joy, the sole survivor of a shipwreck that killed her parents, is rescued from a raft by fishermen and then placed in the Haven Orphanage. Although reputable on the surface, the home really functions as a front for crooks who want to keep Joy there because she carries all of her mother's jewelry in an Oriental box she calls "the dragon," which is adorned by a dragon whose eye is the key to opening it. Joy manages to escape, but without the jewels, and then stows away on a train heading out West. After arriving, she meets Hal Lewis, a miner who has been made an outcast by his upper-crust Eastern family. Hal soon adopts the little girl after she saves his life, and, growing stronger and more serious through the responsibilities of parenthood, he returns home with Joy. Then, after receiving his father's forgiveness, Hal breaks up the orphanage gang and retrieves Joy's jewels. She promises to be his sweetheart when she grows ...
Young Joy, the sole survivor of a shipwreck that killed her parents, is rescued from a raft by fishermen and then placed in the Haven Orphanage. Although reputable on the surface, the home really functions as a front for crooks who want to keep Joy there because she carries all of her mother's jewelry in an Oriental box she calls "the dragon," which is adorned by a dragon whose eye is the key to opening it. Joy manages to escape, but without the jewels, and then stows away on a train heading out West. After arriving, she meets Hal Lewis, a miner who has been made an outcast by his upper-crust Eastern family. Hal soon adopts the little girl after she saves his life, and, growing stronger and more serious through the responsibilities of parenthood, he returns home with Joy. Then, after receiving his father's forgiveness, Hal breaks up the orphanage gang and retrieves Joy's jewels. She promises to be his sweetheart when she grows up.
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